Privacy vs Security: As Encryption Technology Advances, New Concerns Arise

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Major US tech firms plan expanding encryption services to safeguard users from law enforcement access to their private data as Apple is fighting back the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) court order to compromise its security, British media revealed on Monday.

Last month’s California court order for Apple to create software allowing the FBI to unlock the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone has reinvigorated the debate over privacy and national security.

The popular WhatsApp messaging service plans to expand its existing encryption of text messages into voice calls "within weeks," The Guardian newspaper cited two people familiar with the matter as saying. Sources said the service would come out with a formal announcement "in the coming weeks."

It added that WhatsApp’s owner Facebook is considering "beefing up" security of its Messenger software.

Another two sources detailed an exchange between Google’s vice-president of security and privacy engineering and an engineer over encrypted communications. Gerhard Eschelbeck reportedly said in February the search giant was "increasingly… putting effort behind" encryption projects.

One such project includes a 2014 collaboration with Yahoo called "End to End," a service that would facilitate email encryption so that only a sender and recipient would be able to decode the messages.

Earlier in March, 17 major US technology firms filed a legal brief to support Apple’s battle with the US government over "backdoor" software to gain access to Syed Farook’s iPhone. Farook and his wife killed 14 people in the December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernadino.

Apple contends that developing software to unlock the shooter’s iPhone would compromise the security of all its devices. It is due in court on March 22 for the next hearing on the case.